Surfers launch Operation Monsoon

YAMBA'S Stu Bowen has joined forces with some of the world's top surfers, including Kelly Slater, in a campaign to provide four million litres of clean, safe drinking water to the people on the Indonesian island of Sumba.

Mr Bowen said the mission of Operation Monsoon was to prevent single-use plastic bottles from entering the environment while giving Sumbanese and Australians access to clean water.

Launched on the website, onebottleforlife.com, Operation Monsoon will donate water filtration systems to Sumba each time a water filtration pack is purchased here in Australia.

Claude Graves of the Sumba foundation said Operation Monsoon was a great initiative that would impact on the lives of many Sumbanese.

"Almost half of the 600,000 Sumbanese, just 500kms north of Australia, don't have access to safe water," he said.

"Waterborne disease dramatically escalates come monsoon season in December and it's a major cause of the high child-mortality rate".